Preclinical Setup Standardization of the Novel HugoTM Robotic Platform for Upper Gastrointestinal Surgery

Abstract

Recent years have seen new robotic platforms coming to the market, among these, the Hugo™ robotic-assisted surgery by Medtronic is one of the latest. The most significant innovation brought by Hugo™ is the new modular design based on four independent arm-carts, allowing for multiple docking options and port placement configurations. This variability can be challenging at the beginning of the experience and therefore, the development of standardized guides of application has the potential to accelerate the learning curve, facilitate adoption, and ultimately improve surgical efficiency. We conducted a preclinical study at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where 22 human cadaver labs were used to perform upper gastrointestinal (UGI) surgeries to test different potential system configurations and to investigate the systems safety and effectiveness. We successfully developed a reproducible arm-carts setups and port placement configurations for UGI procedures, without recording any major collisions, technical issues, or conversions. This demonstrates that Hugo™ is safe and effective in performing UGI surgery. The data obtained from this preclinical study has allowed to standardize the approach to the abdominal upper quadrants with Hugo™. Although it’s a preclinical work, the initial clinical experiences that have been published so far are confirming our results.